Carmageddon (DOS, Windows, Mac OS Classic)

This page details one or more prototype versions of Carmageddon (DOS, Windows, Mac OS Classic).

To do: Check the other released demos, such as the Interplay ones available here

This game has had a couple of demos released, but the earliest known one comes from PC Format Número 9 magazine. The .zip file that contains this demo has the last modified date of 7th of February 1997.

General Differences#

As expected, being a demo this version has limited features like:

• The player can only select Max Damage at the start of the game, being only the Driver Select screen the only appearance of Die Anna in this demo.
• Only the Red Eagle is available for the player to drive (although data for other vehicles are in the demo).
• Maim Street (Blood on the Rooftops in the final game) is the only race available to play.
• The "New Network Game", "Load Game" and "Save Game" (this one being in the Esc menu) buttons from the menu when clicked just shows a screen that says the demo features.
• When clicking the Parts Shop button at the Race Screen, the same as above happens.
• When the player ends a race, either by winning or losing, after leaving the Damage Gallery an animation showing some screenshots of the full game plays.
• The in-game prat cam doesn't have any sound.

Intro Video#

Most noticeable differences are:

• Neither SCi nor Stainless logos are shown at the start of the video.
• The absence of an announcer and Fear Factory music in the demo.
• The demo video has a shorter duration.
• An early logo of Carmageddon is shown at the end of the video.

Difficulty Selection Screen#

Demo	Final

In the first difficulty, babies was changed to bunnies in the final game.

Race Screen#

Demo	Final

In early versions of the game, you could check the race's map in the main race screen. This feature was removed in the final game.

Grid Position Screen#

Demo	Final

In the final game, the black and gray part at the center is extended (and for that reason, the title is also moved up), but the position of the cars themselves doesn't seem to have changed.

Controls Option Screen#

Demo	Final

• The ability to select from 4 different configurations isn't implemented yet.
• Joystick configuration isn't implemented yet, clicking the "More..." button just makes a noise and nothing more.
• The "Change Up" and "Change Down" controls from the demo are missing in the final game.
• The "Send Message" control is missing in the demo.

Unused Graphics#

In the DATA/32X20X8/ANIM folder there's some unused graphics:

Network Menus#

NEWNAWAY.FLI and NEWNCOME.FLI (Demo)	NEWNAWAY.FLI and NEWNCOME.FLI (Final)

NTSHSTIL.FLI (Demo)	NTSHSTIL.FLI (Final)

NTSCSTIL.FLI (Demo)	NTSCSTIL.FLI (Final)

The screens from the demo seems to be painted on top of the "Change Race" screen, since in the other frames in "NEWNAWAY.FLI" and "NEWNCOME.FLI" we can see the original frames.

Early Car Select Images#

OTIS.FLI (Demo)	OTIS.FLI (Final)

SCREWIE.FLI (Demo)	SCREWIE.FLI (Final)

SCREWIE.FLI in the demo has a size of 165x96 instead of the usual 212x96 used by the other cars in the demo and the full game.

Text Files Differences#

Like in the final game, the .TXT files in the DATA folder are encrypted. Decrypting that data reveals some interesting things.

DARES.TXT#

DPOWERUP.TXT#

File is almost the same, the only differences being at the end. The demo doesn't have the "Vesuvian corpses!" and "Gravity from jupiter!" powerups.

GENERAL.TXT#

Most changes in this file are just the settings that were tweaked, but there's also these changes:

• Starting at line 24 in the demo, the config lines that ended with "(without peds)" were replaced (including their values) by the lines that start the same but ends with "(with peds)".

• There are some differences between some lines that hint at two scrapped network game modes which are also mentioned in TEXT.TXT:

• Also some lines are missing in the demo version (expected being it's an early version):

OPPONENT.TXT#

All the opponents in the final game are present in the demo, there are minor differences between the opponents in the demo and the final game:

• Two opponents had different strength rating, this value indicated how far along in the game you had to be to encounter them, this value can go from 1 to 5:

• Some descriptions had minor changes:

This change is interesting since in the final game, the font doesn't have the glyph for the ; character.

This change just fixes a typo.

The reference to Chevy was changed to 4x4.

OPTIONS.TXT#

All the values in the demo version are present in the final game, the only difference being that the demo version doesn't have the joystick and network related values.

PARTSHOP.TXT#

The only differences are the costs of the parts (which were cheaper in the demo), only the Armor parts will be shown, but the same prices apply for the other parts:

POWERUP.TXT#

Some names have minor differences:

RACES.TXT#

While all the races names are present in the file, unlike OPPONENTS.TXT this doesn't have descriptions (except for the first one, since it's the only one used in the demo).

Early race order#

Early race names#

While the order is different from the final game, we can know the final name since it uses the same .TXT file, so here's a comparison (note that here is only the name that actually changes):

TEXT.TXT#

• Like OPTIONS.TXT, the demo is missing some network related strings, but not all. There are also some minor changes between these strings:

Most notable lines are 67 and 68, which reveals the name of the two scrapped network game modes that were hinted at in GENERAL.TXT.

• Line 136 in the demo says TOTALLY FUCKING WRONG TEXT.TXT, which is nowhere to be found in the final game, just the standard "WRONG TEXT.TXT".